As far as I know the technical details, I have been explained by a developer that this is a complicated matter which is very hard to solve. The allocation of RAM always happens through the OS. When I VST instrument is loaded, it is the VST instrument that is “asking RAM” through Nuendo, to the OS. When the VST instrument is unloaded it “releases” the used RAM. Since the VST instrument has asked for RAM through Nuendo, this RAM however is still “held” by Nuendo. Nuendo does want to release that RAM, but can’t because the OS won’t take orders from Nuendo. (Remember it was the VST intrument that has asked the RAM, although through Nuendo)
I have understood that there are scenario’s to avoid that, but since every DAW is loading plugins & instruments in a different way, it is pretty much impossible to create a solutution for each and every DAW.
I might have made a few mistakes here, but this is as I recall it from a long talk with one of our developers.
Headlands, we have pretty similar systems. I’m not having the issues you are with RAM.
How much RAM does your average project use? And what are your most heavily used VSTi?
I have Komplete Ultimate, Omni 2, Nexus, Ivory, East/West, etc. I’m not a huge Kontact fan, so I don’t often get heavily in there, but use dozens of Nexus and Omni 2 regularly. My point here is that I wonder if certain plugins are the culprit? I usually top out around 12-15GB, but my RAM seems to release pretty well between projects.
And to Fredo. Seems less like an OS problem and more like an oversight in the specs for VSTi plugins, at least to me. I’m thinkin’ a wee bit of handshaking communication between the DAW and plugin would solve this, but I’m betting nobody wrote that in to the plugin format spec. Or if they did, somebody is not paying attention.
Well, -again, as far as I remember- it all depends on how the DAW loads the plugin.
Nuendo loads all plugins at startup into the program, so that when you instert a plugin, the plugin is available immediately. Other DAW’s don’t pre-load the plugins, so in that case the plugin can tell the OS to release the RAM.
Not saying that there aren’t any workarounds, but I haven’t heard of a solution that works for everybody.
It is easily tested with a RAM-hungry plugin.
After firing up Nuendo, no (or very little) RAM is used.
Load the plugin, x-amount of RAM is used.
Close the plugin, RAM is not realesed.
Close Nuendo, RAM is relased.
I’m out of my league here, but AFAIK Delay compensation, instering plugins while project plays, moving plugins between inserts, etc … (Anything you can think of where the host would need to re-calculated things and/or would have to stop to load things) are all related to that.
Have you ever been able to prove that assumption? 32 GB of RAM is a lot, even for two heavily loaded projects. What happens between closing and opening a project? Does Nuendo crash? Could it be possible that there is another reason for that crash?
When you load a plugin in Nuendo, Nuendo sends a command to the OS to load a library and address memory to it. As soon as you close the project, Nuendo will send many commands, i.e. to unload that library which frees up the addressed memory. That is the normal behaviour.
Maybe you could try opening an empty project between two big projects and check your RAM consumption during these operations. You may find out that the issue is completely unrelated to RAM dumping.
I experience the same problem described by headlands. I actually have a very similar system at the moment, but I’ve had the same issues for years just like headlands on multiple systems.
have you been in touch with support about this? Are crash logs being created when this happens? If so, please send them to our support department. Only then we can see what crashed and why.
I never bothered reporting it because I’d seen posts with other people having the same issue…for what seems like years. but, I will see if I get a crash report next time and send it in.
I am getting one other ram related issue as well. I am running windows 7/64 bit nuendo 7…32 Gigs of ram… I seem to be hitting a wall when sessions are using 7 or 8 gigs of ram. I try to load plugins and nothing happens. Sometimes a restart will help…sometimes I need to unload some unused plugins on other tracks to free up ram so I can continue. Very odd because my system resources report plenty of available ram. When I see other users reporting sessions using 12 and 15 gigs of ram, I don’t seem to be able to get near to that. This is on sessions with large track counts and LOTS of plugins (large number of uad plugins as well). Wondering if an upgrade to 64 gigs of ram will make a difference.
That looks like a complete other issue, and not related to the above.
Guess your system needs a checkup. You should be able to use all your RAM, no matter what.
Nuendo is definitely able to use more than 7 or 8 GB of RAM on a 64bit system. Are you running any other
application to which you have assigned RAM? Is there a virus scanner running in background?
Headlands, we have very similar systems. My specs are in my sig below.
Checking on your issue, I loaded up an approx 17GB project and then opened and activated another 17GB project. Around 30 VSTi in each project. I monitored memory usage in Task Manager.
All behaved as expected. The memory was properly released in the switch. I then closed the active project. Again memory was properly released and the original project was reloaded properly.
I then repeated the same exercise, except I closed each project before loading the other. Again, all memory was properly released. I then closed all projects. All memory was released and Nuendo was back to about the same memory usage as when first opened without a project loaded.
The reason I used a pair of projects over 17GB was for the combo to exceed total RAM in my system. On my rig, everything worked as expected with the RAM being released. Don’t know what they means for your issue, I just thought it might be helpful/encouraging to know it can work right.
Hope you get it sorted. I would run a RAM test and also Google BIOS issues/settings for your motherboard.
For the sake of clarity, my system lives offline and there has never been any virus software installed. I’m thinking Timo may have a point about virus software.
Just to clarify.
I was not saying that RAM never was released by Nuendo.
I said that it is plugin dependant.
So it might very well be that -for example- Kontakt is not exposing this problem.
I have no details anout that.
I can only refere to a bugreport I submitted about Virtual Katy, suffering from this problem.
The problem is documented in great detail, and my above comments is what a developer told me in response.
So it might be that some users, using some specific plugins/VSTi’s are bumping into the problem of RAM release and others not. It can also be that it is a problem of that past, because Virtual Katy was not an example of a “well coded” plugin.
I just stepped over this topic during a google research… I am suffering from exact this problem, since years - in all kind of (64bit) versions of Cubendo - currently I am mixing a very large session with about 700 tracks - 7-8GB ram, and so far most of my plugins are not loading anymore - some do (CLA 2A, Sonnox etc) some do not (CLA 3A, most other waves plugins)… I am hitting a wall here, sometimes I can get some headroom when using render in place to bring down the overall plugin count a little…
It IS a memory issue - though not a RAM issue - when I load VSTis (Quantum Leap etc) I can of course use 15-20GB or more without a glitch - but when I reach that usage by using plugins and automation etc only, THEN I am not able to load certain plugins anymore and in addition I often have GUI issues (Slate Plugins are “disabled” regarding the GUI (dead) but still working - the Cubase window bars are not “new and grey” anymore instead of that they are having that old-style blue XP bar…
What is causing that? It is difficult for me, though I can still use all Sonnox plugins for example but no more UAD250 (I need!) and no creative tools like Morphoder etc - even Steinberg Loopmash ist not loading anymore.
Interesting to see that someone else is experiencing the same issue. ive tried to figure this one out for a while. I have been experimenting just this week to see if there is one plugin that might be causing the problem. For me…this only happens in sessions with a very high plugin count. Plugins will no longer load as though I am out of ram (but I’m not). Other, much larger sessions, will load just fine and not exhibit this problem. Do you by any chance use the lexicon lxp reverbs?
Yes I have quite some instances of the lxp reverb in that session - but this still loads fine - while inserting a PCM version from the same bundle gaves me a nasty crash with a “c++ out of memory” error.
I have not sorted out the culprit yet - for example most Softube plugins are not loading any more except the Console1 and for example the spring reverb - I have no isues with PLugin-alliance (bx_console for example) so far as well as I am still inserting Slate virtual mixing desk stuff all the time.
aaah this is nasty… fortunately it will not result in a crash usually - the plugin just not appears when loading… slot stays empty…
they are working fine here but I will try as soon as I am able (not alone here atm)… but I had that issue before and usually I was not using the lxp reverbs…